The UK government makes the case for open access to science.

There's been a growing push to get more scientific research out from behind paywalls. The federal government, private funding bodies, and a number of research institutions have all adopted policies that either mandate or encourage placing papers where the public can view them. Now, it appears that the UK is considering following suit. In addition to planning to make its researchers' publications available, the country's science minister has asked Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales to advise it on how to make the underlying data accessible.

The announcements came in a speech by David Willetts, the UK's Minister of State for Universities and Science. Willets was pretty blunt about access to government-funded research, saying, "As taxpayers put their money towards intellectual inquiry, they cannot be barred from then accessing it."

Like the other bodies that have formulated open access policies, however, he recognizes the value that publishers add to research publications. Publishers both exercise editorial control—deciding which research is significant enough to highlight through publication—and arrange for peer review and integrate the advice of multiple reviewers. And the UK also has a vested interest in their continued viability. London is a major hub for the publishing industry, and Willits isn't looking to simply disrupt the existing system: "Provided we all recognize that open access is on its way, we can then work together to ensure that the valuable functions you carry out continue to be properly funded—and that the publishing industry remains a significant contributor to the UK economy."

To that end, he's interested in expanding the use of two methods that are already in use, which he terms "green" and "gold." Green means that the publishers will get a period of time where they offer access exclusively to their subscribers, after which the paper is made open access (that's how the NIH's plan works). The alternative, gold approach, would be to publish in journals that provide immediate open access for a fee, with the fee being built into research budgets. That approach is already used by the UK's Wellcome Trust, a major funder of biomedical research.

(The Wellcome Trust isn't waiting for publishers to get with the program, though. It recently partnered with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Max Planck Society to found a fully open access journal called eLife, and appointed the former head of PNAS as its editor. Just this week, the fledgling journal announced its full editorial team. The first edition is set to launch next year, with all content being released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Willetts recognizes that there are some potential hang-ups with this approach. Research doesn't go out of date as quickly in all fields, so the length of the publishers' exclusive period may need to be adjusted. In some areas (Willetts cites local history), amateurs and independent researchers make major contributions, but won't have a budget for paying to make their work open access. Finally, the UK is leery of forcing its researchers into an open access plan when other countries haven't adopted a similar one. To that end, it's going to be discussing matters with US agencies and other nations in the EU.

But publications are only part of the story, and Willetts intends to focus on the rest of the research—the underlying data, things that don't get published, etc. He intends to set up a portal that will list every government funded research, and provide access to their papers, any databases they've created, etc. To make sure the information is easy to maintain, modify, and share, the UK is setting up a group that will be advised by Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales.

Lest the publishers think they can wait this one out, Willetts had a rather stark warning for them: adapt, or bad things will happen. "To try to preserve the old model is the wrong battle to fight," Willetts said. "Look at how the music industry lost out by trying to criminalize a generation of young people for file sharing. It was companies outside the music business such as Spotify and Apple, with iTunes, that worked out a viable business model for access to music over the web. None of us want to see that fate overtake the publishing industry."